KEY POINTS:
Mercury Energy announced another electricity price rise yesterday.
It told residential customers in a letter that their electricity bills would increase approximately 3.5 per cent a month.
This meant daily charges would rise from 80.8c to 86.8c per day (or from about $24 to $26 a month). Variable charges would increase from 15.73c per kWh to 16.18c.
The increase would take effect from November 15, and followed a review of commercial conditions.
Mercury Energy communications manager Chantelle Urquhart said Mercury was still one of the cheaper suppliers on the market, and its prices remained competitive.
Electricity prices for residential users have risen 28.2 per cent between 2000 and 2006, compared with 2.7 per cent for commercial prices.
Consumer Magazine editor David Naulls said consumers might not be able to keep up with continuing increases in light of mortgage interest rate increases, credit card interest rate rises, and slight inflation in recent years. Nationally, including state-owned and listed power companies, average household power prices have jumped about 50 per cent since the end of 1999.
State-owned companies declared a combined surplus of $500 million for the latest financial year, on the back of years of power price rises.
Mighty River Power, which runs Mercury Energy, made a profit of $112 million in the last financial year, an increase of $10 million.
